How Our Pain Drives Us To Seek HIM

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I’ll Take A Double Cheeseburger – Ew, Never Mind…

King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:4 that there’s a time to weep, laugh, mourn and dance. But sometimes life’s just hard, and quite frankly you might not even remember when the last time was that you actually just plain ole’ laughed out loud.

I was thinking back to when Jeffrey was in all his therapies – day in and day out. It always seemed like I was dragging him to the car after school to go to yet another therapist (Jeffrey’s Getting Stronger – Isn’t He?). The therapists themselves were wonderful, yet it was just exhausting – both emotionally and physically.

Then one day we heard about something called Hippotherapy. How wonderful and refreshing that was! Hippotherapy is basically horseback riding for kids/people with special needs.

We got connected with a great gal who lived out in the country about 45 minutes from where we lived. She was a licensed physical therapist, and her specialty was taking kids on her horses through the neighborhoods and trails around her home. Jeffrey and I fell in love with it.

Jeffrey started with a little pony named Peanut, and then he graduated to a larger horse. As he was riding the horses the therapists holding him would start slowly stretching out Jeffrey’s tight little legs.

It was also great for his trunk, which was a real weak spot on his body. As the horse would trot slowly back and forth Jeffrey would have to work to keep his body upright. It was incredible, and I was so thankful that the Lord had connected us with that group of therapists.

One beautiful day – knowing that Jeffrey adored McDonald’s (still does!) – the team decided it would be fun to take an extra long walk way down the road to the brand new McDonald’s which had just opened up. They could take him through the drive-thru!

Oh my – what an adventure! As we started on our long 1/2-hour walk down the hill Jeffrey was absolutely beaming.

We finally arrived, and thankfully it was a slow time of day at McD’s. The therapists took Jeffrey on his horse and got in line, and I positioned myself outside the drive-thru window so I could get some pictures.

Jeffrey’s turn came to order, and all of a sudden I saw all these heads popping out of the drive-thru window – what on earth was a horse doing out there? It was a riot – everyone was just cracking up.

Well as usual McDonald’s gave great customer service, so Jeffrey placed his order for french fries and then started to move up to the next window to wait for his food.

Then it happened…

From where I was standing I saw another car pull up behind Jeffrey and his horse to place an order. All of a sudden the horse decided it was potty time, and let out a huge pile of horse poop – right in front of the car at the drive-thru! Although I really couldn’t see the face of the lady in the car, I could imagine myself going, ewwwww…

Meanwhile, a whole group of people had gathered around to watch the spectacle of the horse at McDonald’s, and people were rolling with laughter. I sat there wondering what on earth we were going to do with the horse poop, as any car now driving through would be sure to roll right over it.

But the lead therapist had it in control. She politely asked the little gal at the drive-up window to please pass a wad of paper towels, and she went back, asked the lady at the order window to please wait a moment, picked up the poop, and calmly dropped it in the garbage can.

Whoa – what a way to break up the monotony of a therapy session!

Morale of the story? Don’t be afraid to get out of your little comfort box sometimes – you might actually enjoy it!